


Professionalism

by AJLenoire



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers Tower, Bucky and Natasha Deserve GOOD THINGS and EACH OTHER, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Smut, I Have No Excuse For This Christ, Natasha Romanov Lives, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), SHIELD Agent Bucky Barnes, Sexting, Sexual Content, Shameless Smut, Sort-of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:54:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28251975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJLenoire/pseuds/AJLenoire
Summary: It's been 3 years since Thanos came to Earth in the hopes of uniting the 6 Infinity Stones and remaking the universe in his own image. The Avengers stopped him. Now, they enjoy a life of relative normalcy, with all the ups and downs that can be expected of being called into work in the middle of initiating sexytimes.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 3
Kudos: 33





	Professionalism

**Author's Note:**

> This fic made me google ‘russian dirty talk’ and that will be forever on my conscience. I hope you’re happy.
> 
> Formatting the text segments almost made me cry; originally they were supposed to be in small caps and indented, but alas AO3's HTML capabilities nerfed my artistic vision. The story is set 3 years after _Infinity War_ on the assumption that they stopped Thanos, so it’s 2021 and no awesome women got flung off any cliffs 👀
> 
> As ever, I stuffed an unreasonable amount of worldbuilding into this.

Dawn slowly crept over the horizon, and the New York skyline shimmered. Even three years later, he still wasn’t used to that view. A lot had changed in those past three years, but not that. He would _never_ get used to it.

In his own defence, this wasn't his everyday view. After SHIELD collapsed, the Tower had emerged as the new headquarters for many of its operations—certainly any that required the Avengers. The facility outside the city was for Avengers business independent from SHIELD, which included housing any number of Stark’s weird and wonderful experiments. After it had become clear that Morgan could and more importantly _would_ go digging through her father’s shed, Pepper had insisted Tony move anything dangerous to the facility where it could blow up in peace. 

He had a room in the facility—they all did. A big room with a big bed, a big window and enough security to put even _his_ well-justified paranoia at ease. For the first few weeks after Thanos, when he’d still technically been a wanted criminal, he hadn’t been able to go out in public without being hounded by fans, critics, or law-enforcement. As such, he’d pretty much lived in the compound. After Thanos fiasco had been smoothed over—thanks in no small part to Natasha, who really ought to be hired as the Avengers official attorney at this point—he’d been able to spend time outside the facility’s fences without fear of being arrested, eventually moving into Steve’s apartment in Brooklyn.

These days the compound’s bedrooms were normally only used after missions, when everyone was too wiped out to bother flying or driving back home. Sometimes they didn’t even make it out of the quinjet hangar, and just sat in the hangar itself, trying not to pull stitches and arguing about whose turn it was to make the trek to the kitchen in search of alcohol. The main exception to this was when Carol or Quill or one of the other ‘space-vengers’, as Thor had proudly dubbed them, had to come to Earth and needed a place to crash. No one at the compound would look twice at a one-woman supernova or a talking raccoon.

The Tower, meanwhile, had been almost totally stripped of any homey aspects once Stark had handed SHIELD the keys as a show of good faith after the Ultron incident. Save for a couple science labs, the inside of the Tower was unrecognisable—the medbay had seen a significant upgrade in size and technological capacity (which was really saying something); the huge floors that had once been occupied with large, self-contained apartments, neatly labelled for each Avenger, had been turned into barracks that could house a dozen agents each; Stark’s old office had become Hill’s command-center. He suspected it had been Stark’s office because it had the best view of the city, and wondered if Hill appreciated that, or if she brushed it aside in that no-nonsense manner of hers.

But, as mentioned before, this wasn’t his everyday view. No, that was a mid-range apartment in Brooklyn, far from the classiest place in the borough, but orders nicer than the one he’d lived in back in the forties. It had two decent-sized bedrooms, a large living-room-slash-kitchen, a bathroom, a nice view of Prospect Park and the best roommate he could’ve asked for. Living in a Brooklyn apartment with Steve almost felt like they were back in the forties, sometimes—but infinitely better. They didn’t have to worry about the heating bill, or what they were going to eat, or draughty windows, or Steve possibly dying of any number of ailments. It was just him and his best friend saving the world and otherwise not having much of a care.

Every day it got easier. Easier to pull himself from the dark thoughts, to keep himself grounded in the here and now, to believe he was free of HYDRA and he really _could_ be happy and safe and more than a living weapon. If someone had told him three years ago that he would be where he was now, he wouldn’t have believed them; but by god if he wouldn’t have hoped beyond hope, anyway.

This morning, he’d woken up in his and Steve’s apartment to a buzzing sound, and realised his phone was ringing. He still didn’t quite get how such a tiny device could do so much, but given he had a metal arm and was just over a hundred years old, he’d long-since learned that some things were just to be taken at face value. The only difference between his phone and a regular one you could buy at a mall was that it had been reinforced to minimise the chance of his accidentally crushing it in his left hand.

The message had been short and to the point, as Hill’s messages often were.

_Hill: Briefing 3, 1hr. Soldier, not agent._

Steve hadn’t come out of his room, which meant that he hadn’t been called in. That was unsurprising; when it came to SHIELD missions, they didn’t often work together. After being Natasha’s mission partner for a few years, Steve’s capacity as a stealth operative had definitely improved a lot, but there was only so discreet a man whose cryptonym was ‘Captain America’ could get. The Winter Soldier, on the other hand, had been little more than a ghost story for decades. Stealth was his middle name.

(Technically it was Buchanan, but he didn’t like to advertise the fact that his mother had had the hots for the fifteenth president of the United States.)

“ _Welcome, Agent Barnes_ ,” came the computer’s mild voice over the speaker as he waved his pass in front of the scanner and removed his baseball cap to give the security camera above him a proper look at his face. He hadn’t kicked the habit of wearing a cap whenever he went out, mostly because he didn’t want to. He made a point of keeping his left hand in his jacket pocket as much as possible, and his mission gear was in a nondescript backpack slung over shoulder. Even if there wasn’t an active warrant out for him at the moment, he disliked how _watched_ everyone was in this time. He didn’t want the government—any government—getting too familiar with his patterns of movement, even if it was a benign government. Something about that level of observation made his skin crawl. Maybe it was the decades of having his mind broken and remade. Maybe it was the fact that totalitarianism didn’t change, even if the time and place did.

The elevator ride was, as always, eerily smooth and eerily quiet. When the doors opened and he stepped out onto the mission floor, barely anyone spared him a second glance. That was probably his favourite thing about working with SHIELD. No one really cared who he was, who he’d been. As far as they were concerned, he was willing to work and he was damn good at what he did. Anything beyond that was his own business. He slipped into the men’s room to change into his uniform and stuff his civvies into the backpack, threw the backpack into a locker and was in Briefing Room 3 with precisely four minutes to spare.

Hill was already in there, sat at the head of the narrow table, and looked up when he walked in. “Morning, Barnes,” she smiled. He smiled back and gave a nod, then she turned back to whatever she was reading on the holoscreen in front of her.

A minute later, Natasha entered in full Black Widow gear. Her suit was zipped to her collar, her bites were glowing blue at her wrists, her batons holstered on her thighs. In the past three years, she’d grown out her bleached-blonde hair from her time as an outlaw and it was back to its natural, iconic red. Back then, he’d been rehabilitating in Wakanda. It seemed like a lifetime ago, and he supposed, in a way, it was.

She smiled when she saw him. “Barnes.”

“Romanoff,” he replied, because even when it was just Hill, they both had a healthy appreciation for professionalism. They didn’t call each other ‘James’ or ‘Natalia’, he didn’t make comments about how she seemed to practically live on his and Steve’s couch, she didn’t quip about how much crappy TV he recorded on the DVR, and they didn’t ogle one another—even though they both thought the other’s uniforms were near-criminally distracting. Kevlar-reinforced leather was all well and good, but when it hugged her hips like that, all Bucky could think about was how easily it would tear away with a simple twist of his left wrist.

A handful of other agents filed in and at precisely seven thirty, Hill stood up from her seat and launched into the briefing. He wasn’t exactly sure why the briefing rooms had tables, because he’d never known anyone to sit down when being briefed. Then again, during _de_ briefings, they were all normally so dog-tired that it was all they could do not to fall asleep where they stood.

“Our sci-tech team picked up some strange energy readings in the Alps,” Hill told them, waving her hand so the appropriate charts and maps appeared on the screen behind her. Bucky tried to make it look as though he knew what any of those diagrams were telling him, but as much as he’d geeked out over this stuff back in the forties, it was still way beyond him.

“It’s probably just another remnant of Thanos’ garbage, but people have had three years to study this tech and there’s no telling what kind of breakthroughs could be made with the ships’ power cores.”

 _Ah_ , Bucky thought. That would explain why he and Natasha were on this mission. Hill—and many of the higher ups at the new, HYDRA-free SHIELD—had a keen interest in keeping relations with the Avengers as good as possible. Part of that included keeping them involved with any missions that involved Thanos and other megalomaniacs from the stars.

Hill waved her hand again and a blurry photograph from Thanos’ invasion three years ago joined the diagrams on the screen. “Geneva got special clearance from SHIELD and the UN to run some tests on the cores. Intelligence thinks these readings’ proximity to the CERN facility could be an attempt to mask the cores’ energy signatures. For that reason, we can’t eliminate the possibility that someone in Geneva has gone rogue and is using the cores we sent there in illegal experiments. The Geneva lab has also reported two mission persons over the last six months, so they could be here—whether by their own volition or not is unclear.”

Bucky looked at the map on the screen, at the blinking red dot triangulating the energy signatures’ probable location. Sure, Geneva was in Switzerland, not Austria, but mountains were mountains and icy ravines were icy ravines. Natasha noticed him tense slightly as he looked at the map. Bucky noticed her noticing.

“Your mission is twofold,” Hill went on. “Romanoff, Barnes, you’ll be running a swipe-wipe. Hughes, Merchant, Blake and Jackson, your orders are to neutralise and arrest any illegal operatives; satellite suggests this place is highly guarded. All of you have orders to destroy or confiscate any non-terrestrial materials you find on site. Clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the five of them chorused, without hesitation.

Hill nodded smartly. “Good. Romanoff, you’re on point. Quinjet leaves in ten.”

They filed out of Briefing Room 3. The four SHIELD agents, whose mission was pretty standard fare of ‘beat up the bad guys and rescue the good guys’ all immediately headed towards the elevator that led to the roof and the quinjet landing pad, chatting animatedly. Natasha hung back slightly, falling into step with Bucky.

“You alright?” she asked. There was genuine concern in her voice, albeit under a thick layer of cool professionalism. But the fact that she was asking at all said a lot.

He shrugged. “Not all that fond of the Alps. Not much I can do about it.”

“If it helps, there’s almost zero chance we’ll end up on a rickety train over a gorge,” she said. He raised an eyebrow. She caught it, and they both sniggered. ‘Almost zero’ counted for very little when your life involved alien invasions, surviving huge falls off cliffs, and miraculously being reunited with your best friend from eighty years ago.

To say nothing of what had happened to the pair of _them_.

Their history was as convoluted as it was improbable. Bucky didn’t really know how much time he’d actually been awake for whilst under HYDRA’s control, but it couldn’t have been more than four or five years. In the early nineties, he’d been paired with the top operative in HYDRA’s Russia-based partner, the Red Room, for a handful of missions. The Black Widow, barely twenty, and yet as deadly as the Winter Soldier. Somehow, amongst all that blood and pain and death, a friendship had blossomed. Soon after, something more.

They’d known from the start that they’d get caught, and they had. Beatings were taken, minds were wiped, missions were reassigned. When she’d burned the Red Room to the ground, she’d burned any chance of finding him, too—or so she’d thought. Truthfully, she’d suspected he was dead. Until Odessa. Then she’d just assumed that he was dead in all the ways that mattered. She’d never been so pleased to be wrong.

“Seriously,” she then said, as they stepped into the elevator—it just so happened that they’d been walking so slow they’d missed Hughes and the others, so had an elevator to themselves—“If you feel like you can’t cope, Hill won’t mind. I’ve done plenty of swipe-wipes on my own.”

He looked at her and tried for his best reassuring expression. “I’m fine,” he said, and she believed him. She believed him because that was another of their rules; they were always honest. In a world such as they lived, doing work such as they did, masks and lies were ubiquitous. A healthy relationship for people like them was a statistical rarity, and it became an impossibility when you added lying. Because of their shared past, because they were Avengers, they were able to be completely honest with one another, and they were both keenly aware of just how much of a gift that was.

* * *

Four fractured ribs, three black eyes, two non-critical gunshot wounds and a broken nose. A fair price to pay for the mission’s success. As it turned out, both of the missing Geneva scientists had been at the illegal facility. One had been a hostage, the other had just been one of those Victor Frankenstein ‘anything for the pursuit of science’ types and was unconcerned with possibly blowing up Geneva. The files had been copied, the hard-drives wiped, the power core secured and the hostage rescued. The Frankenstein one was sleeping off a heavy sedative and would likely only wake up after being deposited in one of the interrogation rooms in the lower levels of the Tower.

Hill gave them a curt nod when Natasha handed over the flash drive with the intel. “Nothing relating to similar facilities,” she said. “Not that I could see at least—sci-tech can look over it in more detail.”

“I’ll keep you updated,” Hill said. To say she and Natasha were friends wouldn’t have been wrong, but it probably wouldn’t have been totally accurate, either. Natasha could count on one hand the number of times they’d hung out socially, and that had always been as part of a larger group. But they had an understanding between the two of them; healthy respect for each other and their shared mentor, Fury. Hill was by far the most pleasant person for the Avengers to work with when dealing with SHIELD.

Natasha had been the recipient of one of the gunshot wounds, and Bucky was nursing two of the black eyes and the broken nose. Due to the variation of Erskine’s serum in both their bodies, they would be healed within a few days—not so quick as Steve, but still much faster than a regular human. Until then, they were on leave.

Well, _technically_ they weren’t on leave, because they were operating as Avengers; alongside SHIELD, not within it. With this in mind, they could technically refuse any mission offered to them, as it was only for politeness that they were offered any missions at all. But, in order to keep things running smoothly, the Avengers—specifically Natasha, Steve, Clint and Bucky, since they were really the only ones who interacted with SHIELD—operated on an informal mission schedule. Meaning, if they got injured, they would not be contacted for another mission until they’d had adequate time to convalesce.

Unless it was a crisis.

And it was usually a crisis.

This time, mercifully, there was a distinct lack of crises. After Natasha was patched up in the medbay and Bucky’s nose was reset, they made their way to Brooklyn in the wee hours.

Because it wasn’t a weekend, Steve was awake when they got in—since for some reason he _liked_ getting up at five-thirty to go jogging five days a week. Anything to keep busy, Natasha supposed. There was only so much crappy TV they could tape on the DVR, and whilst she liked not being run ragged by SHIELD, she had to admit that the scale-back in the number of missions she went on left her with a lot more free time than she’d ever had before.

“Wow, you look like shit,” Steve remarked when they walked in, eyes going to the bruises on Bucky’s face. They were turning an impressive shade of purple now.

“Still look better than you,” Bucky shot back, dropping his backpack of Winter Soldier gear onto the nearby chair.

Steve took a long drink from the milk carton in the fridge, ignoring Natasha’s loud noise of disgust as he did. At her insistence—which was a little weird considering she didn’t actually _live_ here—he had his own milk carton, so she and Bucky could use milk without his saliva in it. The idea that real milk was cheap enough to arbitrarily have two cartons in the fridge at all times was still a little mind-blowing to Steve (and Bucky, really), but he also loved the taste, so hadn’t protested.

Natasha flopped down across the couch, though not as carelessly as she would have normally; mindful not to disturb the bandage on her upper left arm. She let her backpack fall onto the floor as she stretched out along the couch's length, toed off her sneakers and raised her uninjured arm. “Throw me some apple juice, would you, Steve?”

“Ah, we’re out,” Steve told her, replacing the milk carton.

She made another disgusted noise. “This is a disgrace, I’m moving out,” she said, so blithely that even without months of evidence, they all would’ve known it wasn’t remotely sincere. Steve had long-since stopped asking if she was going to return her key, if only because she claimed she was moving out every other week.

“Orange?”

“We have orange!” Steve said in a celebratory, game-show-host sort of tone, passing the carton to Natasha. She made an appreciative noise and preceded to drain the entire litre.

“ _God_ , that’s better than sex,” she exclaimed, crushing the carton before throwing it over the back of the couch. It landed neatly in the recycling. She wiped her mouth with her jacket sleeve. “I don’t know what it is about getting shot—I always crave fruit juice afterwards.”

“Electrolyte replacement or something?” Steve suggested.

Bucky frowned. “Does fruit juice _have_ electrolytes?” he asked. Steve shrugged.

“Google it. Or whatever it’s called. I’ll see you guys in an hour—if you haven’t passed out by then,” he added as an afterthought. They both looked pretty tired, and it wouldn’t be the first time Natasha had fallen asleep on their couch after a mission. Hell, it wouldn’t even be the twentieth. Since his sizeable army pension, decades of bank interest and billionaire friend meant money wasn’t a concern for Steve, he’d at one point legitimately considered moving into a three-bedroom apartment just so their guests (Natasha) would have a real place to sleep.

“Play nice with the other kids,” Bucky warned as though he were a parent. Steve snorted as he put in his earbuds. Even though he could easily afford wireless ones, he was worried one would fall out and he’d lose it.

“Tell Sam hi,” added Natasha, her good arm thrown over her face like she was a fainting ingenue in a painting. Her injured arm rested across her stomach, the shoulder of her jacket slipped down to show the strap of her tank-top and the top of the wound dressing. Steve hummed a sort of wordless confirmation, not fully paying attention as he scrolled through his music playlist, then headed out the door.

The atmosphere in the apartment shifted once he left. The levity of three friends chatting was replaced by the supreme exhaustion of two people who’d been going non-stop for three straight days. Even with the modified serum, they both still needed to sleep.

Bucky suspected that part of the reason Natasha slept at their place after missions so often was because she didn’t like being so exhausted—and often injured—alone. Maybe it was some lingering Red Room trauma, maybe her time at SHIELD and with the Avengers had instilled in her the values of sticking with a group. At the very least, he knew it couldn’t be because their couch was particularly comfortable. It was fine, but it was still a couch. But Steve and Bucky’s apartment had Steve and Bucky, and the list of people with whom Natasha trusted her life was extremely short. To have two of those people living together was a small miracle.

“Ugh…” she groaned. “I do _not_ like getting shot.”

He snorted. “Does anyone?”

“Meh.” She gave the sound equivalent of a shrug. “Statistically, I’d imagine someone does.”

“Well, I don’t,” he replied, sinking down deep into his chair with a sigh. “Not that psyched about getting kicked in the face, either.”

Natasha gave a lethargic giggle. “Aw, worried your pretty face’ll get messed up?”

“Please,” he scoffed. “A little scar on my nose? Maybe across one of my eyes? Just that hint of danger? The dames won’t be able to keep their _hands_ off me!”

She was unreasonably pleased by those words. Not so much the content as the fact he’d said _dames_. More so than Steve, Bucky still had some linguistic quirks that marked him as from another time. All his memories from 1945 to just a few years ago were still extremely scrambled, and when he was tired, that was when ‘Bucky’, the suave sergeant, was most visible. He was the bedrock; the constant under all those shifting sands.

That wasn’t to say she didn’t recognise him at those times, either. She understood better than most that people were patchworks of themselves; made up of all the different situations, all their different demeanours according to where they were and who they were with. It just so happened that in her and James’ cases, their patchworks were a little more distinct, some of the pieces had much less overlap. Which was why it was so important to them both that they were always honest.

“I dunno, I’m not having too much trouble with that right now.”

Bucky snorted. “That’s cause you have a bullet wound in your arm. Just wait ‘til you heal, doll.”

He then got to his feet, groaning as he did so and ignoring Natasha’s half-hearted mutter of _old man_. Though, yes, he had been born about sixty years before her, they were the same age, physically. Moreover, in terms of actual ‘time spent alive’, Natasha was probably older than him; _she’d_ never been put into cryosleep. As part of the Red Room’s doctrine of _never trust anyone_ , her official date of birth on all their records—including the files they’d given to HYDRA and even her actual birth certificate—was ten years later than her actual age. She looked barely thirty, but she was actually almost fifty. One of the perks of being experimented on with a rogue version of Erskine’s serum, alongside a higher-than-normal resistance to sub-zero temperatures. It was the reason Steve had survived the plane crash, the reason HYDRA had been able to put him on ice for the better part of seventy years.

“I’m going to bed,” he said, “You wanna come? Or sleep on the couch?”

Though they made a conscious effort to be as honest with one another as possible, they were rarely this frank. Chalk it up to exhaustion and a mild dose of painkillers (well, mild for them. The amount of anaesthetic in their systems was enough to knock most people clean out. But again, serum) but he didn’t have the energy for pretence and delicate questioning—that’d always been Natasha’s speciality, anyway.

It had been three years since Thanos, since Bucky had been pardoned by the world’s governments for his exceptional service, since he’d felt confident enough to trust himself around other people and started living with Steve. It had been three years since Natasha had come to know the man underneath the Winter Soldier again, come to know the Bucky Steve had talked of so fondly. It had been three years since Natasha had decided to trust Bucky not because of what she remembered or what he remembered or what Steve remembered, but because of Thanos. And if she could trust him to have her back in a fight, then he couldn’t be that bad.

At first, this thing between them, somehow a gaping chasm and a rushing river and a million other impassable things, had been difficult to navigate—or, not so much difficult as awkward. How much did they both remember? How much did they _identify_ with what they remembered? Did they still feel those feelings? Did they feel like those were _their_ feelings, and not someone else’s? All the confusion and weirdness of two ex-lovers reconciling had been multiplied tenfold by the fact that they had been, in some way, entirely different people when they’d last met.

And in other ways, entirely the same.

For the first year, they had been friends. Natasha had been surprised to find she quite liked Bucky. She liked the man who treated Steve like a bratty younger brother and a stuffy old man and anything except Captain America, leader of the Avengers. She liked the man who told ridiculous stories about growing up in Brooklyn, about the Howling Commandos, about what stupid thing Steve had done earlier that day. And she liked that she liked him. She felt she could talk to him about her time in the Red Room, his time with HYDRA, and they understood one another. If she hadn’t liked him—found him too arrogant and abrasive like Stark, maybe—she wasn’t sure if she could’ve coped. If she’d realised that the man she’d befriended—loved, even—had been just a fiction; an echo of a real person, an idealised shadow found wanting when it stepped into the light, her heart might have broken.

But instead, she’d liked him. And that had presented its own set of problems. It was almost impossible, after having gone through something like that with someone, _not_ to feel so connected to them. She didn’t have the years and years of history with Bucky like Steve did, but she _did_ have history, and they both knew that after Steve, she was the person he was closest to by far.

Sometimes it was even before Steve. On those nights where the nightmares were darkest, his sins the cruellest, where Steve, for all his acceptance and patience and hope just _couldn’t_ understand. But Natasha could. Because she, too, had blood on her hands. She, too, knew the worst nightmares were the ones where he was holding the knife.

So for that first year, they’d been a happy group of three. Natasha came to their apartment most days, slept over at least once a week. Steve started setting the table for three people, kept a clean blanket and pillows in the bottom drawer of the stand next to the couch. A third toothbrush appeared in their bathroom.

But inevitably, that question had floated in the air around them. They functioned well as friends—and not just in relation to Steve, they were good friends to _each other_. But was that all they were? Did they want to revisit what they had been to one another over twenty years ago? Should they even _try?_

For another year, they’d hovered in that liminal space, somewhat. Natasha slept on the couch as often as she slept in his room. They went out together—dinner, drinking, dancing—but they never called it a date, even when it was just the two of them. They had sex—on this very couch, in his bed, in _her_ bed—but their conversations never shifted to what _they_ were. Friends with benefits sounded too casual. Lovers sounded too formal. Boyfriend-and-girlfriend sounded downright juvenile. _Partners_ was the only word that really seemed to fit. Because they were. Mission partners, sparring partners, dancing partners.

It helped that they both had a rigid commitment to professionalism. Regardless of what they were in their free time, they worked together in the field and they worked together well. They were cool, calm and never got too familiar. It was an easier separation when working alongside SHIELD than on Avengers business, but it was still a line neither of them intended to cross.

Just over a year ago, they’d both finally decided to stop pussyfooting and call it what it was and to just admit to themselves that, even if it wasn’t the _smartest_ decision to revisit a romantic relationship that had burgeoned in the midst of the most traumatic period of both their lives, it was what they both genuinely wanted.

All that said, Natasha still slept on the couch a lot—mostly because she stayed up so obscenely late. Bucky would go to bed partway through an episode of some crappy show they both liked-but-also-didn’t, and she would promise to join him once the episode was over, only to fall asleep on the couch. They also both slept in her apartment at least a couple times a week, because despite Steve and Bucky’s various amused protestations to the contrary, she _did_ have her own place and she _did_ live there.

After missions, however, they still didn’t have a clear system set up. Natasha moved her arm from where it was still draped over her face and looked at him.

“Do you want me to?”

He shrugged. “Not gonna complain about your company,” he said, “But I don’t think it’s gonna be very… exciting,” he added.

That it wouldn’t. They were both injured, drugged to hell and liable to drop off to sleep at any moment. But that wasn’t why he was offering, and they both knew it.

Natasha gave a slow smile and laboriously pushed herself up into a sitting position. “I like the idea of sleeping in an actual bed,” she said, padding over to him in bare feet. He was still wearing his boots, adding another inch to their height difference, and ducked his head to gently kiss her temple.

Whilst the room assigned to him at the facility outside New York was almost depressingly bare, Bucky’s room in the apartment had all the hallmarks of a real home. There was a desk in the far-left corner, a few files of SHIELD paperwork spread out across it. On the wall above it was a framed photograph of the Howling Commandos, as well as a shelf of journals in various states of shabbiness, slowly detailing his life since escaping HYDRA, his journey back to himself. He still wrote in journals, but not because he was afraid he would forget if he didn’t; simply because he wanted to make sure he could always remember. He had a lot of things _worth_ remembering, these days.

On the wall directly opposite the window was a collage of newspaper covers and posters and photographs. Baseball games from the thirties, movie posters from the forties, photographs from last year and three years ago and eighty years ago and a hundred years ago. A patchwork of all the good things he could remember, because it helped to focus on them. And right in the middle, next to a photograph of him and Steve at their high school graduation, young and skinny and fresh-faced, was a photo of Natasha.

The black-and-white was an aesthetic choice rather than a technological limitation, as evidenced by the tiny _1995_ written on the bottom-right corner. She was sitting in a dressing room, in front of a mirror lined with lights, adjusting her make-up and wearing a silky robe that had slipped down her arm, baring her neck and shoulder. Hung up next to the mirror was a tutu, and her hair was pulled back into a neat bun, her reflection smiling coyly at the camera.

She didn’t remember it being taken, and though neither of them knew for sure, she was fairly confident James had been the photographer. She liked to think that she wouldn’t have smiled like that for anyone except him, no matter the photographer, no matter the mission.

He caught her looking at the photograph and smiled. “I meant to tell you,” he said, “I think I remember that night.”

She looked at him, eyes widening. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, running a hand through his hair. After Thanos, after deciding he wanted to live with Steve in Brooklyn, he’d cut the somewhat-hobo-like style into something tidier. It was longer than was common these days; pretty much the style he’d worn in the forties, and it suited him. He vaguely remembered Natasha telling him she liked that he hadn’t cut it too short, because she liked to run her fingers through it—or better yet, to hold on to it. “We were staking out a mark. He liked ballet.” He took a step towards her, running an impossibly gentle finger down the side of her face. His metal arm was cooler than his body temperature, but not as much as one might expect. Still, he saw her shiver slightly.

“You were put into the performance to spy on him. Afterwards, I pretended to be the manager. Asked if he wanted to meet you.” She watched his expression for shadows, for hints of the violence that could threaten to pull him in. Even their loving moments from back then were steeped in blood. But this time, at least, he seemed immune to their darkness. “I took that photo just before the performance.”

She tilted her head back slightly. “Why?”

He shrugged. “I think I just… wanted to. You looked pretty. At ease. I wanted to remember it.”

Natasha looked back at the photograph. She looked so… _young_ then. But she would’ve been. Barely twenty. She would’ve only known James a few months, maximum. Was it strange that they’d been so smitten with each other so quickly? Or did it make perfect sense, because everything else about their lives had been darkness?

She smiled at herself, the same coy expression. “Well,” she said, “I think you could give Steve a run for his money.”

He chuckled, slowly wrapping his arms around her waist, leaning his forehead in the crook of her neck and shoulder. She felt his warm breath huff down her back. “It’s pretty easy when I’ve got a subject as beautiful as you.”

Half of her wanted to swat him for saying something so cheesy, and half of her was deeply flattered. She settled for leaning back slightly, feeling his chest press against her back. He raised his head and rested his cheek against her hair, sighing slowly. “ _Fuck_ , I’m tired.”

“Me, too,” she agreed, and they turned away from his patchwork of memories. Bucky undressed, throwing his boots, henley and jeans in the vague direction of the corner, not really caring where they landed. It was faintly funny how messy he was, but she could understand why. HYDRA and the Red Room had not allowed for messiness, and she suspected that the second world war hadn’t, either. Messiness was freedom, for people like them. A small one, maybe even a little trivial, but a freedom nonetheless.

Natasha, by contrast, moved gingerly around her injured arm. After a while, Bucky helped her, slowly easing off her hoodie, pulling her jeans off for her. Standing there—him in his boxers, her in a sensible pair of boyshorts and a tank-top—the full toll of their mission on their bodies became more apparent. Dark bruises mottled their skin, there was a graze up most of Natasha’s left forearm, and a small burn on Bucky’s hip.

It was unbelievably good to slide into the soft sheets of his bed, holding one another. Because of the gunshot wound, Natasha curled onto her right side, burrowing into his chest. He gently laid his right arm across her, legs tangling together. Sleep, they both knew, would come quickly like this; warm and safe and exhausted.

“Тебя люблю," he murmured, pressing his lips to the top of her head. He didn’t say it because he felt like she didn’t know, or because they were about to go into a dangerous mission and he wanted to remind her—though he’d said it for those reasons in the past, and he suspected he would again in the future. He said it simply because he could, because for so many years he hadn’t been able to.

She felt him smile against his chest. “Тоже тебя люблю, милый мой,” she replied. Not because he’d forgotten, or because he doubted. Just because she could and she did.

* * *

They slept for twenty-six hours straight.

A combination of the painkillers and their exhaustion, Natasha was confused and surprised to see daylight when she opened her eyes—until she looked at the clock on the nightstand and noticed the date. Neither she nor James had moved in their sleep, and her muscles were stiff even as she felt warm and comfortable. He was like a furnace next to her, warm and soft, his flesh arm gently thrown over her waist, his metal one shoved under the pillows. To a stranger, it simply looked as though he was propping his head. To Natasha, she knew he had a gun stowed under the pillow, just like she did at home. Some habits she didn’t want to break, even as she realised they were probably doing more harm than good, mentally.

She nudged him lightly. “James.”

He grunted. She grinned. Back in the Red Room, he’d been quiet, only making noise when he spoke. Even then he’d been a man of relatively few words, even when they’d been alone. He just hadn’t been chatty. She hadn’t been all that chatty, either; her sense of humour was as much a sign of her healing from trauma as it was a psychological middle finger to her old handlers, and for those reasons she loved when he made noises. Bucky, as it turned out, was _very_ chatty.

She nudged him again. “ _James_.”

“What?” he mumbled, not opening his eyes. His arm around her waist tightened a little and he pulled her closer. She normally wouldn’t protest, but she’d been lying in this position for ages and she wanted to move.

Tilting her head back to look at him, she was pleased to see a lot of the bruising on his face had gone down. His nose still looked a mess, but his eyes were almost back to normal. Leaning up, she kissed him; a quick peck on the lips. He smiled.

“What do you want?” he asked, voice slurred with half-sleep.

“I want to get up,” she said. “I want a shower, and food—lots of food,” she added, suddenly feeling ravenous. They hadn’t eaten in over a day; almost two days, actually.

Mention of food seemed to make Bucky aware of his own hunger, and his eyes cracked open. “Damn you,” he told her. “I was perfectly comfortable.”

“I know,” she smiled, kissing him again, this time on the cheek. “You can stay here, if you want—but you need to let go of me.”

“No,” he said childishly, moving his metal arm from under the pillows to encircle her waist and pull her against him. “I’m too comfy.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were hungry.”

He groaned. “Maybe a little,” he admitted, glowering at her insincerely. She snorted.

“Come on—shower.” A hot shower. A _long_ , hot shower to relax her muscles and scour off all the dirt and sweat and blood from the mission. “You can decide what food you want when I’m back.”

He still didn’t let go, and looked down at her. “I need a shower, too, you know,” he told her, smirking a little. She grinned at him.

As far as Natasha was concerned, there were few things more luxurious than a hot shower. Sharing a hot shower with James was one of them. There was something so intimate about it, especially after a mission, when they were injured. Normally, she hated feeling so defenceless, but she didn’t mind it around him. She even kind of liked it. She didn’t feel uncomfortable when he helped wash dried blood out of her hair, off the healing gunshot wound on her shoulder. She didn’t feel like she was invading his space when she cleaned the dirt away from his bruised face, from the mess of scar tissue on the seam of his arm.

He pressed a feather-light kiss just above the wound on her arm, and she shivered. It had nothing to do with the water, which was hot enough to make thick clouds of steam curl through the air.

“Will it scar?” he asked, lips carefully ghosting up her arm, her shoulder, her neck, finally pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth. He’d done that back in the Red Room, called it their secret.

“Probably not,” she replied, raising her arm, testing the range of motion she had, linking her arms around his neck and pulling him down for a long, slow kiss. He sighed against her mouth, wrapping his arms almost gratefully around her, relishing in the sensation of her bare skin pressed against his.

He wouldn’t mind if it did scar; she would always be beautiful to him. Only one of her scars had ever brought him sorrow. His thumb brushed over the diamond shape on her abdomen. She didn’t seem to care if she got scarred, either. Not in the recklessly self-destructive way; she just didn’t have a vested interest in maintaining her porcelain-perfect looks like the Red Room had. If she got a scar because she was willing to risk her life to save someone else’s, then it was a mark of pride.

This, he was sure, was heaven. Standing under the warm spray, in Natasha’s arms, not having to worry about anyone or anything. It was peaceful, and for so long he’d doubted he would ever experience peace, ever be worthy of it. He kissed her again, long and slow. The sort of kiss that always came after a mission. The sort of kiss that conveyed _thank god we’re alive_ , the giddiness of their success, the relief that they were safe, the quiet assurance that they were doing good things and saving good people. It was the sort of kiss that might’ve broken their hearts, once upon a time, because it was so filled with love he wondered if he might burst.

Natasha ran her fingers along the seam of his arm and he shuddered. His sense of touch there was… limited. Half metal and half thick scar tissue, he only had touch sensors in the hand part, but the physical sensation wasn’t what made his breath catch, and she understood that. The act of bearing their scars was more intimate than simple nakedness. Allowing someone, anyone, to see his past written across his skin was terrifying—and, when it was Natasha, somewhat thrilling.

“As much as I would love to stay here…” she half-purred, looking up at him through her lashes, “…I really am starving.”

He chuckled, pressing another kiss to her temple. “Me, too,” he agreed, and they stepped out of the bathroom. Neither of them had heard Steve, and Natasha was momentarily confused until she remembered that it was a Friday. He went with Sam to VA meetings on Fridays, and they often hung out in Manhattan. Those meetings were some of the only instances where Steve could not be ‘Captain America’, and possibly the only instance that didn’t involve him spending time exclusively with other Avengers. At the VA, he was just another veteran, and he had faced the same struggles as all of them. She knew he missed normality, sometimes; the anonymity of it.

It was a coin-flip as to whether Steve would be back at all tonight—Sam had an uncanny talent for getting him to stay out unreasonably late at bars, something which Bucky envied immensely. Even if he _did_ come back, she suspected they had a good few hours at least.

With this in mind, she let her gaze wander as James rummaged through his chest of drawers with nothing but a towel around his hips. He caught her looking and smirked.

“See something you like?”

She smirked back. “I don’t know, I can only see half of it.”

He raised an eyebrow, walking over to her, brushing his thumb over her lips, and for a moment she thought he was going to pull her towel off and his and leave fresh bruises on her neck and hips—but no. He just kissed the corner of her mouth again and said, in a very earnest tone, “I’m hungry.”

She pouted, which only made him chuckle. “Don’t worry,” he added, “I’ll save room for dessert.” His eyes glanced down for the briefest moment and he winked.

“You better,” she remarked, then began rummaging through the bottom drawer, where she kept a few spare sets of clothes for herself. A moment later, she made an exasperated noise. “I don’t have any clean clothes.”

Bucky made a sympathetic sound. “You want to borrow some of mine?”

She knew for a fact that if she did, they would never get food, because few things drove him quite as wild as the sight of her in one of his shirts and nothing else. Problem being, she really was starving, and it would be a lot better to savour the moment than rush through it because they were both hungry.

“No,” she sighed, “I’ll just put on the old ones.” There was something distinctly depressing about putting on dirty clothes after a shower.

“Aw,” Bucky murmured, kissing to the top of her shoulder. “If I knew _that_ was the alternative…” He trailed a line of soft kisses along her shoulder, to the crook of her neck, finishing behind her ear.

“James…” she warned lightly, because once he got started, no amount of hunger or bruising would stop them.

“Mm?” he hummed innocently, catching the lobe of her ear between his teeth. He couldn’t help it—and when their roles were reversed, neither could she. There was something so _fun_ about teasing her, seeing her get all hot and bothered because of him; flushed face, heaving chest, soft little moans. His left hand snaked around her hip, fingers cool and metal, sliding along the bare skin of her thigh just below the hem of her towel.

“I thought you said you were hungry,” she murmured, even as she tilted her head to the side so he could keep mouthing hot, wet kisses along her throat. She raised her left arm to run her fingers through his hair, not caring about the slight ache from the wound, holding his lips against her skin. His right arm was curled around her waist, pressing her back against him, and she could feel the bare skin of his chest against her shoulders.

“I am,” he replied, nipping her earlobe again. “S’not my fault you look good enough to eat.”

She would’ve swatted him for giving such a cheesy line if she weren’t so hyperfocused on his left hand still gliding along her thigh, infinitesimally higher, slowly creeping under her towel. His right hand moved, too, up to where she’d tucked it in, clearly going to pull it off entirely—

His phone buzzed.

Natasha turned her head to where it was vibrating on his desk, but his right hand caught her chin, and there was almost a desperation in how he pulled her lips to his. “Ignore it,” he muttered, voice low and hoarse with a different kind of hunger. She kissed him, tipping her head back to devour him, pressing back against his chest, against his growing arousal under the towel, urging his left hand higher, higher—

His phone buzzed again.

“James—” she muttered, pulling away barely enough to speak, her lips brushing against his as she spoke. “You really should—” She was cut off by yet another buzz.

He knew she was right, and with a reproachful sound he pulled away from her and scooped up his phone. It was Hill, which wasn’t unusual. What _was_ unusual was that she was calling him, not simply sending a text. That would explain the repeated buzzing, at least.

Shooting Natasha a mildly confused look, he answered. “Hill?”

“ _Barnes_ ,” came the reply, brisk as ever. She didn’t seem concerned with how long it had taken him to answer. “ _I know you’re meant to be on R-and-R right now, but we need you to consult on a mission plan. Could you come in?_ ”

“Uh…” he fumbled for a moment. Sometimes it took a minute for the Winter-Soldier-SHIELD-agent mindset to kick in when he wasn’t expecting it. “Sure. Just a consultancy, right?”

“ _Just a consultancy_ ,” she confirmed. “ _We’re not sending you out into combat, you should be back within an hour._ ”

He nodded, then realised that Hill couldn’t see him. “Alright. When do—”

“ _ASAP_ ,” she cut across smartly. “ _We don’t have a large window, we need to move fast._ ”

“Understood,” he replied. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

“ _Good. Briefing 2_.”

That was the closest thing Bucky got to a ‘goodbye’ or a ‘thanks’ before she hung up. He looked at Natasha. “Duty calls, I guess,” he said, half amused, half apologetic. His eyes raked up and down her body. Flushed cheeks, glittering eyes, dressed only in a towel. Had he done something wrong? Did he need to make some karmic payback? What had compelled fate to pull him away from her like this?

He knew the answer to that; his own fervour to atone, his own self-sacrificial nature. He wasn’t as bad as Steve, but then, _no one_ was.

Natasha shrugged. “Comes with the job,” she said. She was glad he wasn’t going into combat though—not because she thought he couldn’t handle himself, but because they’d _just_ gotten home, and she fully intended to pick up where they were leaving off when he was done. “When did she say you’ll be back?”

He smiled. “She reckons within an hour,” he said, throwing his phone on the bed and returning to the drawers in search of clothes. “Wanna wait here?”

She cocked her head, considering it, then frowned. “I need to head home, anyway,” she said, “Get some clean clothes.”

“You know I wouldn’t object if you just wanna wait as you are,” he said with a grin, and she laughed.

“I know you wouldn’t,” she replied, eyes raking over _him_ as he dropped the towel and pulled on a pair of boxer briefs. He caught her looking and smirked. “I’ll grab something to eat there, we can meet after and get some real food?”

In between tugging on his combat pants and looking for a shirt, he ducked to kiss her. “Sounds like a plan.”

* * *

A few minutes later, Bucky left the apartment wearing a fitted black t-shirt—a look he knew Natasha liked a lot, and a look he could wear in public now that Shuri had given him a nanosleeve; a long glove he could slip over his prosthetic arm that mimicked the appearance of real skin. It was only a superficial disguise—no one who touched his arm would be fooled for a moment—but it meant he didn’t have to wear thick, heavy jackets zipped up to his collar all the time.

Since he was just going to the Tower for a meeting, which meant he’d be back later that morning instead of after three days of no sleep and a few injuries, Bucky decided to take the motorcycle he quote-unquote ‘shared’ with Steve rather than the subway. He preferred to avoid public transport when he could, ever mindful of the millions of cameras. Plus, he suspected Natasha would be watching from the window, and he maybe he still wanted to tease her a little. It was too fun not to. Slipping on his leather jacket, he glanced back at the building in a move that any civilian would just assume was him adjusting the jacket collar. But Natasha was no civilian, and sure enough she was watching from the window, and sure enough she saw his glance and his choice of transport for what it really was. He flashed her his suavest smile and gave a casual two-fingered salute—a move that’d had all the girls swooning back in the forties and, if Natasha was any indication, would have them all swooning now—before straddling the bike and speeding off with a snarl of the engine.

He entered Briefing Room 2 eighteen minutes after Hill had called, and was surprised to see that she wasn’t the one sitting at the head of the narrow table, rather it was Director Mackenzie.

“Sergeant Barnes,” he said, when Bucky walked in.

He’d be pretty bad at his job if he had a visible reaction to something unexpected, so he just nodded and said in a neutral tone, “Director. Agent Hill said you needed me to consult on an upcoming mission?”

Mackenzie nodded. “Agents Johnson, Simmons and Merchant will joining shortly. Thanks for agreeing to provide intel.”

“Happy to help, sir,” Bucky replied, still in that neutral tone. He didn’t _like_ revisiting that time in his life—most of his memories were hazy and he honestly preferred it that way—but he could at least talk about them without going catatonic.

A minute later, three agents filed into the room; presumably Johnson, Simmons and Merchant. Bucky only recognised the last one, and whilst it was far from accurate to say he _knew_ her, they’d worked enough missions to warrant a friendly nod of the head.

Director Mackenzie gave Johnson and Simmons a friendly smile, and Bucky became acutely aware of just how much Natasha was rubbing off on him. Her expertise had always been reading other people, observing and cataloguing the infinitesimal twitches that betrayed fear, lying, arousal. She could interrogate someone from another room; another country. If he’d wanted answers, his handlers at HYDRA had opted for the bloodier, more direct solution. But then, subtlety had never been their strong suit. They’d called on organisations like the Red Room whenever they’d required a delicate hand.

As such, he hadn’t had as much training in body language as she had—just enough to fool civilians into thinking he was whatever he said he was. But after almost three years of practically living with Natasha, he’d started to pick up some of the subtleties. It was clear that Mackenzie, Johnson and Simmons had worked in the field together for years, that Mackenzie trusted them implicitly, even if he sometimes worried about sending his friends on dangerous missions—all of which adding up to a mission that was going to be extremely sensitive.

Bucky didn’t know Mackenzie like he did Hill, but he supposed it made sense. Hill had always been the Avengers’ primary contact within SHIELD. What was more concerning to him—or, not quite concerning, because he didn’t mistrust the man, he just didn’t _know_ him—was that Natasha didn’t know him either. She had a longstanding history with Hill and ex-Director Fury, but her contact with Mackenzie was scant.

He seemed like a nice enough man, though. Firm and authoritative, much like Fury, but it was clear he had a strong moral compass and a conviction to do good. Bucky just didn’t feel much like singing the man’s praises when all he really wanted to do was go home and eat an unreasonable amount of food and spend an unreasonable amount of time between Natasha’s legs.

Once everyone was sat down, Mackenzie started. “Sergeant Barnes has kindly agreed to consult with us for the Koslovka mission. We’ve identified a small terrorist cell operating west of there and previous surveillance operations indicate connections to the Winter Soldier program HYDRA was running in the nineties.”

“Connections how?” asked Simmons. She had an English accent—Sheffield, if he had to guess, but there were tones of Glasgow. Perhaps she’d lived there for a few years.

Mackenzie tapped the console embedded in the table and pictures flashed up on the screen behind him. “One of the field agents collected a soil sample from the facility; we’ve identified trace elements of Howard Stark’s variant of the super soldier serum.” His gaze flickered to Bucky. “The… variant stolen in 1991. HYDRA seems to have finally figured out how to reconstruct a stable version.” He looked at Agent Simmons and Bucky noticed the slight relief at being able to change the subject off his—Bucky’s—previous crimes. “Simmons, we want you to collect a bigger sample so you can test it more fully—swipe-wipe if you need to, I’ll leave the details up to you. Merchant, you’re our best sharpshooter since Grant Ward, you’ll be providing distraction and acting as back-up. Johnson—”

“You want me to quake the facility into rubble,” Johnson cut across with a nod. She clearly cared about the mission, but Bucky could tell that authority in general had never been her style. He wondered what had made her decide to join SHIELD; if her story was anything like his or Natasha’s. She turned to Bucky. “Any information that could help us?” she asked. It might have come across as confrontational or dismissive if not for the genuine interest in her expression.

Bucky took some small, slightly childish thrill in showing off his skillset, mostly because he didn’t often get the opportunity to. When he’d been HYDRA’s ‘asset’, they hadn’t cared about what he had to say, just that he got the job done. Plus, it was nice to use the information they’d given him to help take them down. “If it’s anything like the program I was involved in, the assets will be extremely dangerous even without serum. Only HYDRA’s top agents are even considered and the screening process is ruthless. This version of the serum takes days to integrate with the body, and it’s much harsher than Erskine’s. If there are any soldiers there, I’d recommend retreat and extraction.” He paused. “Not to sound… self-important, but… that would be an Avengers level threat.”

Mackenzie raised an eyebrow. “Are there _likely_ to be soldiers there?”

Bucky shrugged. “Depends on what they’re doing there. That could be a manufacturing plant or a training facility—if it’s the former, they probably won’t be wasting their serum on their own security. Not enough people survive the process, they’ll be selling off their assets to the highest bidder. If it’s a training facility…” He grimaced. “There could be as many as a dozen, likely still in the first stage of acclimatisation.”

Johnson looked at him. “Which is?”

“Extreme psychological instability,” Simmons answered before Bucky could. “Fits of rage, hallucinations.”

“Which is why I’m sending the three of you,” Mackenzie said. “A small specialist team to minimise chance of discovery.”

The four of them continued discussing mission schematics, and Bucky’s contributions lessened, mostly only being called on for occasional comments or clarifications. It seemed they had most of the intel already, but they wanted to be sure when dealing with something as potentially dangerous as an army of enhanced HYDRA soldiers. As such, he found his focus increasingly slipping from the session, back to his apartment, to Natasha, to what Hill’s call had interrupted.

As though willed into existence by his daydreams, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Mackenzie wasn’t looking at him right at that moment, so he decided to look, expecting a message from Steve about what to have for dinner that night. Instead, it was a text from Natasha.

_Natasha: i found some clean clothes_

He frowned for a moment; confused. Why would she be telling him this? She knew he was in a consultancy meeting.

_Bucky: uh… good for you?_

_Bucky: you know i’m still in a meeting right?_

_Natasha: i know_

_Natasha: but i’m bored_

Something was up. Something was definitely up. What was her game here? He’d see her in less than an hour. Had someone infiltrated her apartment but she was unable to communicate? Was she trapped in her apartment and trying to surreptitiously call for backup? No. _No_. The only people who knew where she lived were the Avengers and a handful of civilians.

So what was her game?

“Barnes, is everything alright?”

He looked up sharply and saw Mackenzie watching him, watching how he was clearly not paying attention. Bucky clicked off his phone and tried not to look embarrassed. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “You were saying?”

Mackenzie eyed him a moment, but didn’t comment further, and returned to his overview of the Koslovka facility’s security measures. After a minute or so, Bucky’s phone vibrated again.

_Natasha: i wish you were here_

He blinked at the screen. Was that really it? She was bored and wanted to make him feel guilty about coming in? He’d known her to poke fun at him, at his occasional over-eagerness to mend fences by helping SHIELD, but this seemed… different, somehow.

_Bucky: me too_

_Bucky: but i’m in a meeting_

_Bucky: with the DIRECTOR btw_

Even as he admired himself for using a text acronym correctly, he was still not quite sure what she was doing. Then, as if summoned by his confusion, his phone buzzed again, twice.

_Natasha: ooh someone’s finally moving up_

_Natasha has sent a photo. Click to view._

He clicked. For a moment, as he stared at the screen, he thought she’d sent the photo by accident. It was a picture of her legs resting on a windowsill. She had a soft chair in her bedroom and often sat there with a cup of coffee, feet propped up, watching the sunrise. This was that exact shot from her perspective; the morning light streaming through the window, the gauzy drapes, her long legs bare and outstretched.

Then he realised. This wasn’t an accident. This was _payback_. He’d left her high and dry so now she was showing him _exactly_ what he was missing.

His phone buzzed again. It was another photo. This one seemed to have been taken at the same angle, but with the front-facing camera. The frame was filled with a close up of her collar, and she was wearing a dress shirt that, after a moment, he realised was _his_. The too-large collar almost slipped off her shoulders, and the top two buttons were undone, showing a hint of black lace.

Another buzz, then; another text.

_Natasha: like my outfit?_

Bucky swallowed. He had two options. He could ignore the photo, focus on the consultancy meeting he had been _specially called in_ to help with… or he could respond. Indulge her. Encourage her.

God, if Hill had just called an hour later. If he’d just said no.

_Bucky: you’re the one who’s always getting on about professionalism at work_

_Bucky: this doesn’t feel very professional_

“Ahem.”

He looked up and saw Director Mackenzie giving him a stern look. “Is there an emergency, Sergeant?”

Bucky turned his phone off and folded his arms. “No, sir. Captain Rogers didn’t know I’m here, wanted to know how the Geneva mission went,” he lied easily. It didn’t feel great to lie just to save face, but what was the alternative? His girlfriend—the Black Widow and a legend within SHIELD—was sexting him? He’d honestly rather go back into cryostasis than admit that aloud. “By the way,” he then added, relieved to see something that could mollify how he hadn’t been listening, “HYDRA’s taken to using infrared cameras as standard—but disguising them as regular CCTV cameras.”

Mackenzie nodded. “Duly noted. Simmons, make sure to pack the necessary equipment.”

“Yes, sir,” Simmons replied, nodding, and the discussion resumed just as another text arrived.

_Natasha: i’m not at work_

_Bucky: technicalities_

_Natasha: but i’m not_

_Natasha: nothings stopping you from turning off your phone you know_

She was right, loathe as he was to admit it. He could just _not respond_ , he could just _ignore her_. He could just wait until the meeting was over and then he could go to her apartment and they could spend the rest of the day watching her take off that shirt.

As he grappled with how to react, his phone hummed twice; two more photos. Natasha had anticipated his dilemma and was endeavouring to sway him. He should just not look; just wait until this meeting was over. It didn’t matter if she’d sent more tantalising shots of how she was dressed—or undressed—he would see in real life soon enough. He would—

He looked at the photos.

The first picture was another shot of her legs—more her lap, really. The dress shirt was fully unbuttoned now, showing a pair of lacy black panties that surely matched whatever bra he’d gotten a peek of last time. Her thumb was hooked into the waistband of the panties, tugging them down slightly.

The second picture was a close up of her collar and the bottom half of her face. A red flush was crawling up her throat, he could see her head was tipped back, one errant red curl falling across her face, and she was biting her lip as if caught in a moment of desperation. He could only imagine what had transpired between the taking of these two photos that had caused her to turn red like that, and he knew she would know that.

Sure, he _could_ not respond, he _could_ just ignore her.

Or…

_Bucky: what’re you doing?_

That was all the encouragement she would need.

_Natasha: thinking about you_

_Bucky: what about me?_

_Natasha: how much i want you here_

_Natasha: what i’d do if you were_

_Bucky: oh yeah? what would you do?_

_Natasha: you tell me_

This was a bad idea. This was a very bad idea. He was in a meeting. He was in a meeting _with the Director_. But he’d seen that photo. And he’d never been all that good at listening to authority when it came between him and his Natalia.

_Bucky: sit on your bed_

_Bucky: on the edge_

_Natasha: just sitting?_

_Bucky: touching yourself_

_Bucky: like you are now_

_Bucky: me watching_

He decided to pretend that the air conditioning system had abruptly malfunctioned and that was why he suddenly felt several degrees warmer.

_Natasha: like this?_

Another photo. A view of Natasha seemingly from her own eyes. Perched on the edge of her bed. Her legs were spread wide, one hand in those black lacy panties. The flush had spread all the way down her neck to between her breasts. The bra was gone but the shirt was still there; the barest modicum of modesty as it covered her otherwise-bare chest.

 _Oh fuck_ , he thought numbly. He hadn’t thought this through. This wasn’t going to end well. Actually, it probably would—probably _very_ well. But until he was out of this meeting, he was fucked in all the wrong ways.

He’d brought this on himself, he knew; by teasing her earlier, by responding to her messages instead of just putting his phone on Do Not Disturb. It didn’t matter that it was torture, that it was grossly disproportionate to what he’d done; he’d opened the gate for her and now she was striding through and dragging him helplessly behind her. He’d be annoyed if it wasn’t so damn hot.

_Bucky: exactly like that_

“Barnes!” Mackenzie said sharply, and his head whipped up.

“Sorry—what?”

Mackenzie didn’t look all too pleased by the fact that Bucky had been blatantly ignoring him in favour of whatever was on his phone for the third time. “I _said_ ,” he began, in a remarkably restrained voice, all things considered, “If you would be interested in joining this operation. Since you have a lot of first-hand experience with the Winter Soldier program.”

Bucky tried to think of a way to say ‘no’ without sounding like he was afraid or like he thought he was too good for a SHIELD mission. This was made somewhat more difficult by the fact that his brain didn’t currently have access to the blood supply. “I don’t want to overstep my… jurisdiction here,” he said carefully. “My familiarity with this specific cell is as good as yours—I just know how the program used to function. Frankly, I’d probably be more of a liability, since I’m a person of interest.”

Mackenzie nodded. “Fair enough. We could use your sniper skills if you change your mind—no offence, Merchant,” he added, and Merchant grinned even as she gave a _hmph_.

Bucky turned back to his phone.

_Natasha: wanna feel your hands on me_

_Bucky: me too_

_Natasha: yeah?_

_Bucky: i like making you moan for me_

_Bucky: seeing the black widow lose all her composure_

_Natasha: lose my composure?_

_Natasha: and how’re you gonna do that?_

He forced himself to keep his expression neutral. There were a lot of ways he could do that, but he’d always been more of a show-don’t-tell person. He liked to keep her guessing about what he would do next, making her ask for it, beg for him to touch her.

_Bucky: run my hand up your leg like earlier_

_Bucky: slide my fingers inside you_

_Bucky: feel how wet you are_

_Natasha: oh yeah?_

_Bucky: kiss my way down your body_

_Bucky: taste how much you want me_

_Natasha: please_

_Natasha: fuck me james_

He almost couldn’t suppress the shiver that thrummed down his spine at the sight of his name. She didn’t even have to be here to say it, he could just imagine the breathy whine. He was utterly under her spell, drowning in her, and he loved it.

He then became dimly aware of Mackenzie’s voice again and decided to err on the side of caution and look up from his phone for a few moments to make it at least _seem_ like he’d been paying attention. Though for a moment unsure of what exactly Mackenzie was talking about, he cottoned on quickly, and subsequently realised that they were probably nearing the end of the meeting.

_Bucky: natalia_

_Natasha: yeah?_

_Bucky: you need to stop for a second_

_Natasha: why?_

_Natasha: i want you james_

_Natasha: want you to come over and fuck me_

Another picture. He didn’t dare click on it.

_Bucky: i’m not looking at that_

_Bucky: the meeting will be over soon_

_Bucky: i have to stand up to leave_

_Natasha: so stand up and leave_

_Bucky: i CAN’T stand up!_

_Bucky: i gotta calm down_

_Natasha: lol_

_Natasha: at least show me first_

_Bucky: what?_

_Natasha: show me how hard i got you_

_Natasha: how much you like thinking about fucking me ;)_

She was doing this deliberately and they both knew it. Whilst they had a healthy sex life, she was rarely this explicit, and as mortifying as the idea of getting caught was… he wasn’t exactly complaining. He was caught between laughing and being pissed off because, well, if it’d been anyone else, it would be pretty damn funny. He was so horny he couldn’t go to his girlfriend’s place and have sex with her.

_Bucky: stop it_

_Bucky: or i’m not coming over_

_Natasha: liar_

_Natasha: you can’t bluff with me_

_Bucky: maybe not but i’ll certainly take longer if you don’t stop_

_Bucky: because i am NOT standing up in front of mackenzie with a hard on_

He switched his phone to Do Not Disturb, spending the last few minutes of the meeting paying meticulous attention. It was very interesting; terrorist cell in Russia, selling enhanced soldiers and Howard Stark’s serum. Very serious. Not at all sexy. Don’t think about Natalia. Don’t think about the photos. Don’t think about the flush on her neck or the way she bit her lip or how she was touching herself—

_I am so fucked._

And once again, not in the fun way. He wished the Tesseract would spontaneously materialise in front of him so he could teleport to her apartment and rip off those panties and bury his face between her legs until she was screaming his name—

That wasn't helping. _Calm thoughts. Sedate thoughts. Unsexy thoughts._

He was a master assassin, it shouldn’t be this hard— _okay, poor choice of words_. None of his training in compartmentalising had ever prepared him for this. HYDRA, frankly, hadn’t given two shits about his sex drive. Most of the time he’d been too wiped and too programmed to register he even _had_ a sex drive, and on those rare occasions when he _hadn’t_ , he’d been too busy with other things.

Like the Kennedy assassination.

He started singing _The_ _Star Spangled Man With A Plan_ in his head. For all Steve despised that song, it had proven unexpectedly useful when he needed to slow down with Natasha—or, in this case, kill a hard-on before he embarrassed himself in front of the Director. Whilst he was eager to reform the Winter Soldier’s reputation into something other than a cold, ruthless Nazi weapon, that wasn’t _quite_ the angle he was looking for.

Mackenzie glanced around the room and was probably pleased to see Bucky was actually paying attention this time. “Alright, then,” he said, “If no one else has any comments?” He directed this particularly towards Bucky, who erred on the side of caution and just shook his head.

“No, sir. I stand by what I said earlier.”

A stiff nod. “Understood. Johnson, Simmons, Merchant, you have two hours to prep before the quinjet leaves. Dismissed.”

Bucky very slowly got to his feet and filed out of Briefing Room 2, trying to look as innocuous and quietly-threatening as possible. Mercifully, he was alone in the elevator down to the parking levels, and put in a wireless earbud. Unlike Steve, he wasn’t paranoid about losing one. Heading towards the motorcycle, he pulled out his phone and called Natasha.

She picked up almost at once.

“ _James?_ ” Her voice was ever so slightly breathy. What had she been doing since his last text? He didn’t let himself consider the possibilities; he was still surrounded by SHIELD agents.

“What the hell was that?” he asked, but his tone made it clear he wasn’t actually angry.

Natasha’s tone was dangerously coy. “ _I missed you_.”

“I’ve only been gone—” He checked the clock on his phone. “—seventy-five minutes.”

“ _And I missed you._ ”

He tried to keep the smile off his face, but he just couldn’t. All his training seemed to go out the window whenever Natasha was concerned.

“ _In my defence_ ,” she continued, “ _You left right in the middle of the fun_.”

He snorted. “I left _before_ the fun—you just decided to torture me with it.”

Her grin was practically audible. “ _You liked it_.”

Biting down on a chuckle, he grudgingly admitted. “It… was one of the more interesting meetings I’ve had. Made me wish I’d said no to Hill.”

She laughed. “ _Now where’s the fun in that? I can just imagine it—you trying to keep your cool in front of Mackenzie._ ”

“Certainly tested the limits of my compartmentalisation,” he admitted. He reached the motorcycle. “So, am I coming to yours, or should I just go home and keep my phone charged?”

At that, she snorted. “ ** _At_** _mine, James. Not ‘to’_.”

A grin crawled up his face. “What’re you doing right now?” he asked, unable to help himself now that he was away from Mackenzie’s disapproving glower.

“ _Talking to you_.”

“Is that it?”

“ _No._ ”

He twisted the ignition and the engine roared to life. “What else, then?”

She chuckled. “ _You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?_ ” she teased.

That in itself was intriguing, and a little maddening. She knew exactly when to give and exactly when to take away. Again, he might’ve been annoyed if it wasn’t so damn hot.

“Should be there in twenty minutes,” he told her, “If the traffic’s nice.”

She hummed. “ _Make it fifteen_.”

“What, you expect me to speed, Natalia? I’m a law-abiding citizen.”

“ _What can I say, I’m impatient. I want you, James. Right now._ ”

He shivered. “Twenty.”

“ _Fifteen._ ”

“Twenty, and I’ll make it up to you.”

“ _Fifteen and I’ll meet you at the door—in your shirt._ ”

He muffled a groan as he turned out onto the road. “You’re killing me. I can’t change traffic. And if I end up getting stopped for a ticket—” He honestly didn’t think he’d be able to bear it. Never mind the fact that any cop would probably recognise him and spend ten minutes talking or lecturing, he wasn’t exactly comfortable on the bike in his current state.

She chuckled again. “ _Maybe you’ll have to stop off and take care of yourself_.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he muttered, taking a left.

“ _Jacking off because you can’t help thinking about me? It’s crossed my mind. I half wondered if you were gonna do that after the meeting ended_.”

He grinned. “Why waste time and energy?”

She scoffed. “ _Please, we both know you’d hardly make a dent._ ” Another side effect of the serum, his refractory period and libido were… enhanced. Nothing extreme, but enough to notice.

“Maybe I’ll do that just to give you a taste of your own medicine,” he told her, taking another left. “Barricade myself in one of the changing rooms.”

“ _Imagining it’s my hand instead of yours?_ ” she suggested wryly. “ _That I’m on my knees in front of you?_ ”

An image jumped into his mind. Natasha, still wearing that shirt, kneeling in front of him, running her hands over him, her tongue. He bit his lip.

“I’m trying to drive here.”

“ _Drive faster and you won’t have to imagine it_ ,” she purred. “ _How far out are you?_ ”

He glanced up at the signs overhead as he sped by. “Traffic’s alright. Twelve minutes?”

“ _Ugh that’s so_ long _…_ ” she whined, then added, “ _Just like you_.”

Even _she_ couldn’t make that line sexy, and he laughed. “Right.”

To her credit, she recovered quickly. “ _You’re perfect. Why do you think I couldn’t stop thinking about you?_ ”

“Uh, ‘cause you like fucking with me?”

“ _That too. I also like fucking you. I like feeling you inside me—your fingers, your tongue, your—_ ”

“SHIT!” he yelped, speeding past an intersection just as the lights changed to red. Somewhere behind him, a car honked angrily as he narrowly avoided a collision. “Natalia, I can’t fuck you ‘til you can’t walk if I die in a crash.”

There was a hint of amusement in her voice. “ _Right, sorry. I’ll back off._ ”

“Just be patient,” he grinned, “I’ll be there in ten—then you can _feel_ me all you like.”

“ _I thought we were getting something to eat. You said you were hungry._ ”

“I am. Just not for food,” he replied. He took a right. “I have my keys—stay in bed,” he ordered, making his voice that throaty growl he knew she liked so much, then ending the call before she could reply.

He knew when to take away, too. Leave her waiting for him, unable to talk to him, just fantasising about when he got there. He wondered if she would actually stay in her bed. They both got bossy but neither of them were particularly serious about it. As much as it turned her on when he gave her orders, it turned _him_ on when she looked him dead in the eye and said ‘no’.

He would deny it in a court of law—and indeed to anyone who asked him except Natasha—but he did punch a few miles above the limit to get to hers. In his defence, it was hard to ride a motorcycle when, well, hard. He activated the bike’s magnetic-log breaks (a handy little upgrade from Stark; nothing short of the arc reactor prototype that lived in the bottom floor of the Tower could move it now) and hastily let himself in to the building, climbing the stairs two at a time before arriving at her door.

She jumped on him the moment he entered her apartment, shoving him back with the force of her pounce so he collided with the front door and slammed it shut. He might’ve made to exclaim in surprise but his mouth was currently occupied with hers. One of her hands reached up to bolt the door as the other palmed the front of his pants, and he hissed through his teeth.

“I—” he panted breathlessly. “—I thought I—told you—told you to wait—on the bed—”

She pulled away just long enough to give him a devilish grin. “Since when do I take your orders?”

He smirked, grabbing her by the hips and turning them around so she was trapped between him and the door. “Since I _say so_ ,” he growled, kissing her neck hard enough to leave a mark. Now that he was actually here; seeing her, touching her, it was like a drug. He was crazy with her—crazy _for_ her. He wanted to cover her in marks; her neck, her breasts, her thighs. He wanted to have her shaking and whimpering his name just with his mouth, so overcome by pleasure she couldn’t even think of a smartass retort.

“Left or right?” he murmured against her throat. She seemed so caught up in what he was doing to her neck she didn’t quite register.

“What?”

He grazed his teeth over her skin, and a shiver thrummed though her entire body. “I _said_ ,” he repeated softly, “Do you want to ride my left hand, or my right?”

She bit her lip and muttered something in Russian, too quick and too breathless even for him to catch. “Right,” she managed, and he grinned into the crook of her neck. His metal hand gripped her hip and he thrust one leg between both of hers, too far down for her to rut against him.

His right hand ducked down between them, under her panties, and he felt warm slickness on his fingers, practically dripping.

“ _Fffuck_ , Natalia…” he groaned. “All this because of me?”

Even this slight touch was enough to make her moan; she would’ve been embarrassed had this been anyone else, but right now all she could think about was how much she wanted him— _needed_ him. “M-maybe,” she panted.

He grinned again; dark and hungry. This was how he liked her best. She was witty and a genius and deadly and gorgeous but only he could get her like this; desperate and trembling and oh so unrestrained. He pressed his lips right to her ear, voice low and rumbling. “You were thinking about me?” he asked, not because he needed an answer, but because he liked hearing how her breath hitched when he asked, liked saying it aloud. “Touching yourself for me? Imagining it was my hand?”

She hummed.

“Say it,” he whispered.

“…yes,” she gasped.

He bit the lobe of her ear gently, glad she hadn’t worn earrings. “Got yourself all hot, wishing I was there with you? Wishing I would slide my fingers inside you, make you come with my tongue, get you all nice and ready for me to fuck you?”

“ _Yes_ …” she repeated, breathier than before. Her hand rubbed over his pants again. “I told you—wanna feel you inside me, James.” She squeezed, just the right amount, and he gave a slightly choked off moan. Despite how dizzy she felt, how electrified, she managed a grin; two could play at that game.

“And what about you?” she asked. “Sitting in that meeting, imagining you were here with me, watching my touch myself, watching me get all wet for you?”

“ _Natalia_ …” he murmured, the shape of her name in his mouth making clear he’d slipped into Russian. He was pressed tight against her, but she pushed him back slightly, one hand hooked around the back of his neck, the other running over the front of his pants.

“You like seeing me like that, don’t you?” she murmured. “Liked seeing how much I wanted you—wet, and hot, and tight; _aching_ for you, James. You just wanna rip off my panties and fuck me until the neighbours hear me scream?”

“The thought—had crossed my mind…” he managed.

She licked a long, slow strip up his throat, felt his Adam’s apple bob. “Or maybe I shove you back onto the couch,” she continued. “Make you touch yourself for me until you’re begging to come. Then I ride you until the neighbours hear _you_ scream?”

God, that sounded even better, he almost dragged her over to the couch there and then. But as unbearable as this sweet torture was, he had other ideas, first. Dropping his hands to her hips, he picked her up. She reacted at once, wrapping her legs high around his waist, and he pressed her against the door, high enough that he could kiss along her chest, lick paths up her sternum, flick his tongue over her breasts until she was whimpering. He could feel wet heat around his navel; how desperate she was for him, how needy, despite all her attempts at cool, collected teasing.

He pulled away from the door and carried her through to the bedroom, almost throwing her down on the bed, almost careless. He knew she liked when he let himself be a bit rougher, let go just a little. He leant over her, lathing open-mouthed kisses on every inch of bare skin he could see, working a slow trail down her stomach. His metal fingers rubbed her through her soaked panties, and though he didn’t have a great deal of sensation in that hand, he could feel how hot she was, and the twitches of her abdominal muscles.

He mouthed her through the black lace, entranced by the flush on her chest, the way she bit her lip, fisted her hands in the bedsheets. He grinned, pressing a kiss into the soft skin of her thigh, hooking a finger into the waistband and slowly, _achingly_ slowly, pulling them off her. Tossing the panties aside, he knelt over her, leant down to kiss her deeply on the mouth, lightly scraping his teeth over her skin, moving lower, lower, lower—

“ _Ungh!_ ” she moaned, one hand flying to his hair, gripping tight, anchoring herself as he ran his tongue over her, tasting her, how much she wanted him. He hooked his right arm around her thigh, holding her in place, left hand stroking her lightly. He slid one, then two fingers in, moving them in time with his tongue, and her legs began to spasm.

He grinned against her, keeping that rhythm, listening to her half-moaning his name in-between heaving breaths, the muttered curses that caught in her throat, the slow but steady rise in pitch as she climbed higher and higher, closer and closer towards release. As she got closer, she opened her legs wider, spreading herself for him, raising her hips towards him, shameless. _God_ , he loved her. There would be time enough for poetic reels about her mind and her skillset but right now he was just in love with the sight of her, the sound of her, the taste of her.

“Yes—” she breathed, quick and panting. “Yes, yes—right there, _oh_ —yes, yes… oh _—fuck— **James** —!_”

Every muscle in her body tensed, back arching off the bed, fist in his hair. For a moment, she was motionless, untouchable, then she went limp, and with a sound as sweet as the ache between his legs, she went limp. Boneless, she melted into the bed. Her grip relaxed on his hair and she lazily carded her fingers through it.

“That…” she mumbled, breathing hard. “You…”

He grinned at her, wiping his mouth carelessly and pressing another kiss to her thigh. He crawled his way up to her, his smile smug and mischievous. “Worth the wait?” he asked. She just smirked at him.

“You say that like we’re done,” she replied, and with an unexpectedly steady hand, pushed him so he rolled onto his back, propping herself above him. She pinned his wrists down and kissed him, bolts of electricity concentrating at her abdomen when she tasted herself on him. “Sit on the edge of the bed.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, and she hated how much she liked when he said that, but right now she was a woman with a mission and nothing—not even sexed-up James Barnes in a fitted black t-shirt—could distract her from her mission.

He sat as instructed and she tossed a pillow between his feet to cushion her knees. Bracing her hands on his thighs, she kissed him, hands slowly sliding up his legs, pushing up his shirt to run indulgently over his abdomen and feel the muscles twitching in anticipation. His breath hitched in his throat when she gave that first tug on his belt, and the eagerness with which he lifted his hips so she could tug his pants down was amusing and exciting in equal measure. They were always so eager for one another, it was addictive.

Pulling away from his mouth, she nibbled the lobe of his ear, felt him shudder a little, shamelessly desperate. She pulled his boxers down and took him in one hand. “Is this what you were imagining?” she asked in a low voice. His hands were fisted in the bedsheets, tight enough to tear.

“S—something like that,” he groaned, watching her with lidded eyes. A red stripe was painted across his cheeks, mouth slightly open as he panted softly.

She cocked her head. “Something?” she echoed, stroking slowly. His mouth quirked as he attempted to grin, but his arousal won out and he bit his lip. It looked even better when he did that than when she did. He saw the crack in her smug façade and smiled.

“You know what,” he replied, and she grinned. She did.

Without warning, she ducked her head, and he put a hand to his mouth, biting his knuckle to stop the sound in his throat. Her free hand moved from his knee to reach up and pull it away, and he caught her meaning. She liked when he was loud just as much as he liked when _she_ was. It was blatantly self-indulgent, but considering they hadn’t often had the chance to _be_ self-indulgent until just a few years ago, they took any opportunity they could get.

He couldn’t keep his right hand from going to her hair, but he didn’t hold her head, didn’t push; he just needed something to ground himself. Looking down at her in front of him, watching her take him in her mouth, feeling her lips and her tongue and her hand.

“Na— _talia!_ ” he managed, breath hitching in time with her movements, like he was an orchestra and she was the conductor. He tugged at her hair, imploring her to pull away. Dangerously slowly, she leant back. Just enough to press a soft, almost sweet kiss to the tip.

She looked up at him. “Yes?” she asked, impossibly innocently.

He grinned at her, something wicked and predatory. The dazed look in his eyes, hazy with pleasure, added a lecherous element. It was unreasonably attractive, she thought. “Stand up,” he told her, using that voice again—when he’d told her to stay in bed. She hadn’t listened then, but she did now, rising to her feet but not moving back. He was eye level with her navel and close enough that he would barely have had to lean forwards to kiss it.

She looked down at him, curiosity and anticipation glittering in her eyes. “What now?”

Running his hands up her legs, over her hips, he briefly considered seeing how long her legs could support her weight if he put his mouth between her legs again. Instead he said, “Go to the window.”

The glint in her eyes got brighter. She went to the window, smirking at him over her shoulder. He wasn’t sure which he liked better; when she refused to obey him or when she did without question.

The view from the window was more impressive than the one from Bucky’s, on account of the fact that her apartment faced the East River. A post-card-worthy shot of Manhattan; she could just make out the top of the Tower in midtown. She liked to be several floors up; high enough to be distant, but not so high that getting down was a struggle. Which was to say that no one could look up from the street and see her window, or who was looking out of it, in any detail.

Leaning against the sill, she heard the creak of her bed as he stood, sensed him walking over to her, pants still bunched low on his hips. She leant back just enough to press the full length of herself against him. In its unbuttoned state, his shirt had slid off one of her shoulders, and she felt his t-shirt against her skin, the rough material of his combat pants against the backs of her thighs.

He pressed back against her, revelling in how well she fit against him. His lips found the join between her neck and shoulder, trailed down as far as her bare skin went, and his hands—one warm, one cool—inched it off her shoulders and down her arms, tossing it aside. She wasn’t exactly sure _why_ she liked feeling her naked back against his clothed chest, but she did.

In a parody of earlier, he ghosted his left hand up her leg, barely brushing against her skin. He teased her; lightly, gently.

“You just gonna tease me all day?” she asked in a low, breathy voice, and he chuckled.

“Maybe,” he replied, more breathing the word than saying it. His breath was warm on the back of her neck. “Why? What do you want me to do?”

She keened. “You know what.”

“Do I?” The note of command in his voice made her legs feel unsteady in all the best ways. “Tell me.”

She knew this was his own little payback for earlier, loved it as much as she hated it. Grinning, she let her head fall back, looking at him over her shoulder. Pressing back against him, she said, “I want you to fuck me, James.”

He kissed the spot below her ear. “Ask me nicely,” he purred.

Breath hitched in her throat. “Please—fuck me,” she whispered.

He did. In one smooth stroke, he buried himself to the hilt, and she couldn’t hold back the wanton moan that escaped her. It was so much better than his fingers, even his tongue in some way, to have him pressed against her, moving inside her, hearing his shallow pants and muttered curses as he tried not to lose himself entirely—not yet at least. He curved his body over her, right hand sliding down their arms, twining their fingers together, his left holding onto her hip, guiding her against him. Open-mouthed, messy kisses scattered across her shoulders, down her spine.

All pretence of smirking flirty superiority left her now as she just gripped his fingers, left hand coming up to cradle his head, twisting her neck to kiss him, to look him dead in the eye when they found they were breathing too hard to kiss. Each time his hips snapped to hers, a soft groan escaped him. Everything about him—the look in his eyes, the pressure of his fingers, the way he curved against her, each movement of him inside her—was like lightning in her abdomen, she could barely think.

“James—” she gasped.

“Тебе ето нравитсыа?” he growled, lips brushing her ear and she had to bite her lip because _god_ , she always loved hearing him speak Russian. His voice shook with control, hoarse

“Да—” she managed, “Да, мне—тракхни меныа! Не останавлываысыа!” Her fingers tightened in his hair, imploring him, and he wrapped his left hand around her hips, holding her against him.

Her orgasm almost caught her by surprise, crashing over her like a cresting wave. She gave a small cry, and for a moment, as stars scattered across her vision, she was only aware of how warm his metal hand was, cradled against her stomach, the only thing holding her upright. She only barely registered his muffled shout as, a moment later, he too followed her over the edge. When her vision cleared, she realised he was rubbing small circles on her stomach, as though gently guiding her back down to earth, as though prving to himself she was real.

Turning her head, she pulled him down for a lazy, sated kiss. It was a kiss in the barest sense of the word; their minds too blurred, their grins too wide. “How’re you feeling?” she muttered, keenly aware of him still inside hard her. One of the serum’s more benign side-effects.

“Pretty good,” he replied. “You’re hot when you do that, did you know?”

She chuckled. “You might’ve told me that once or twice.” Leaning back against him, she heard the soft groan in the back of his throat. She chuckled again, pushing him back slightly so he slid out of her, and turned to face him.

His pupils were blown wide, bright with arousal, tracking her every tiny movement for some hint of what she was going to do. She loved him like this; so eager, so excited. Almost puppy-like, with those big brown eyes. It was almost as good as when he growled in her ear and told her to ask him nicely.

The tip of his tongue darted out to lick his lips. It seemed to be an unconscious action. She liked that she noticed. Liked even more than he felt relaxed enough around her to not have to police his every movement. “What’s your game?” he asked her.

She smirked at him, eyes glittering with the sort of idea that he knew he would end up liking. He willingly when she pushed the center of his chest lightly, walked him backwards; pliant and obedient when he reached the edge of the bed, when she pushed him to sitting, when she straddled him and pushed on his shoulders so he lay down, boots planted on the floor, gazing up at her naked torso.

Taking her from behind was hot as fuck, he thought, but seeing her ride him? There was no greater pleasure. His hands slid up her thighs, her flanks, palming lightly at her breasts as she ran her own hands under his t-shirt, hiking it up several inches to bare his stomach. She plucked at it and he sat up just enough that she could pull it over his head. She bent to kiss him, slow and sultry. The feel of her bare skin against his was as comforting as it was exciting, even more so when he could feel warm wetness on his abdomen, the curve of her backside against him.

“Ыа хочы тебыа внутри меныа,” she purred, and he shivered. She lifted her hips, taking him in one hand, and looked him right in the eye as she sank down onto him.

He half-choked a groan, but didn’t break eye contact. Cool and coy, as if he hadn’t had her begging for him to fuck her not two minutes ago, she shook her head. “None of that,” she told him. “Be as loud as you like.”

He was pretty loud. Muttering curses in English and Russian, moaning her name, accent becoming increasingly more Brooklyn as thoughts were dashed from his mind, consumed only with the sensation of her riding him, the way she bit her lip, her hands braced on his chest. He gripped her by the hips, entranced as she moved over him, threw her head back, parted her lips in a small ‘ _oh_ ’. One of her hands moved down to where they joined, and that—the sight of her touching herself—was what tipped him over the edge again. With a moan that sounded vaguely like her name, he thrust sharply upwards, shuddered, then went limp.

For a long minute, the world didn’t seem quite real, and fuzzed around the edges. She looked down at him, smiling like the cat who’d got the cream, then slowly climbed off and lay beside him.

“How’d you feel?” she asked. He was still too dazed to formulate a reply, but wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him like when they slept; her curled into his right side. His left hand was raised, brushing sweaty hair back from his face.

At last, he managed, “Fuck!” in a cheerful, stunned tone. She laughed.

“Worth the wait, then?” she asked smugly, and he turned to look at her.

“Funny,” he drawled. 

For a few minutes, they just lay there, sweat cooling on their bare skin, a pleasant ache beginning to announce itself between her legs. Neither of them were particularly confident in their ability to stand at that moment. The air was still but for their slowing breaths, soft kisses, promises whispered against the skin of his chest, her throat, their lips.

Eventually, however, she felt the urge to move, and patted his chest lightly to get his attention. “Come on,” she said, “I want food—for real this time,” she added. He chuckled and tucked a curl behind her ear, leaning over to kiss her forehead. Shakily, they stood up, he kicked off his boots and pants, and they stepped into her shower.

* * *

Interacting with civilians when not on a mission was something Bucky did neither often nor very well. Before, living alongside them when being so far removed from his own humanity had felt as though there was a wall between him and them, or that he was in fact a totally different species. These days, it was easier, but that just meant the brick wall had turned into a glass one.

Natasha, though she didn’t much _like_ being around civilians—it was nothing personal, but she wasn’t really close to any aside from Laura and the kids, and they knew the nature of their dad’s, and by extension _her_ work—was good at it. She had had to be. The Red Room had focussed on infiltration where HYDRA had wanted elimination, but that was a double-edged sword. She was so conscious of her entire body at all times, so conscious of everyone else’s, that it was hard to just ‘act natural’. In some ways, she’d forgotten what ‘natural’ really was.

Something to which Bucky could relate strongly.

It was easier to act natural when pretending to be someone else, and maybe it wasn’t the healthiest coping mechanism, but it worked. The average civilian would never know Black Widow, anyway; would never understand the person behind the pseudonym. So the people in the street did not walk past the Black Widow, they didn’t even walk past Natasha Romanoff. They saw some photoshopped ideal, the version she had deemed acceptable for public consumption, the reserved but friendly young woman, her somewhat-menacing-and-yet-shy boyfriend, and occasionally that handsome blond man they both seemed to live with.

It was amazing just how much people missed when they weren’t looking for it. Bucky made sense; his face had been hidden with goggles and a muzzle and (for some reason that neither of them knew) eyeshadow, his hair had been long and shaggy. But her? She didn’t even wear a mask in the field, for goodness’ sake.

And yet the polite-looking barista at Starbucks never seemed to put together that the redheaded woman who went by ‘Nat’ was one of the most dangerous women on the planet—certainly the most dangerous _human_ woman. It might’ve had something to do with the fact that she liked to wear a white beanie hat, but he wasn’t sure.

It was early afternoon by the time they’d found the energy and resolve to step out the shower, put on some clothes and head out in search of food. There was a pizzeria a few blocks down from her apartment, about a third of the way from hers to his and Steve’s. As was often the case with good food, it was a small place that few people knew about and fewer still knew how to find. But of course, finding things that were hard to find was something both of them were _very_ good at.

Walking down the street with a stack of pizza boxes under one arm and Natasha’s hands wrapped around the other was, he reckoned, as close to paradise as one could get—closer by far than he ever thought he _would_ get, that was for sure. Stealing sweet kisses as they went, sharing stupid jokes, it was unbelievably, delightfully domestic.

Steve came back from whatever he’d been doing that day to find them curled up together on the couch, working their way through the second pizza and watching some cartoon about a town in Oregon and a triangular demon. He was pleased to see the bruises on Bucky’s face were almost entirely gone, as were the circles under both of their eyes. All the same…

“I see you two finally woke up,” he remarked. They both turned away from the TV, Natasha sticking out her tongue, Bucky taking his arm from around her shoulders to flip him off.

“We got you a pizza—” Natasha said.

"Two pizzas, actually," Bucky interjected.

“—but I see our charitable efforts were wasted.”

Steve grinned. “Hey, whoa,” he said, putting up his hands. “I’m a man who appreciates pizza—give it.” Bucky reached forwards and passed an unopened pizza box to him. Steve took it, bumped Bucky’s offered fist, and kissed the top of Natasha’s hair as though she were his bratty kid sister.

Sitting down in the chair next to the TV, he gestured with one pizza slice to the screen. “So what is this?”

“Not sure,” Natasha replied, “It was on. Kinda cute, though.”

“Cute?” Steve echoed. “I thought the Black Widow didn’t _do_ ‘cute’.”

She smirked at him. “She does,” she replied, and looked pointedly at Bucky. “She also does _sexy_. And _smart_. And—”

“Very funny,” Bucky cut across, rolling his eyes, and Steve laughed.

“I hope you two don’t do this on missions,” he told them. “Your poor teammates.”

Natasha’s grin was dangerous; the sort of grin both Steve and Bucky knew not to trust, for their own safety. “Oh, _no_ ,” she said. “That would be extremely unprofessional.”

Bucky chuckled and kissed the corner of her mouth. “Extremely,” he agreed.

**Author's Note:**

> I have been vibing hard with the 2012 era of MCU fandom—y’know when Tony had a floor for everyone in Avengers Tower and Clint lived in the vents—and was seized by the urge to write something fun and sexy. This is ~~probably~~ the smuttiest thing I've ever written.
> 
> Bitches still be hoping they’re gonna pay homage to the Bucky/Natasha romance in _Black Widow_. It’s me. I’m bitches.
> 
> Also? Did you know suavest (i.e. ‘most suave’) isn’t a real word? It should be.


End file.
